How I Loved Her
by GravityNeko
Summary: Six months after Mara Jade Skywalker's death, Ben poses a shocking question to his father.
1. The Short Question

**A/N: This came to mind when I was driving to work this morning. I was pulling into the parking garage so I had to get the idea down. This will occur in two parts…both will be short I believe.**

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"Dad?"

"Hm?" Luke was performing his yearly maintenance on his little astromech droid, R2-D2.

"Can I ask you something?" Ben shifted his mother's lightsaber in his hand.

His father stopped what he was doing and set down his tool. He pivoted to engage his son fully. "Go ahead. Whatever it is, I'll do my best to answer you."

"Did you love mom?"

Luke nearly choked at this question. "What?" He said, recovering from his shock. "Ben, what kind of question is that! Of course I loved your mother. Why would you ask me something like that!"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "I know you loved her now…then...," His son paused. "But what about before you got married?"

The Grand Master froze, stunned. Out of all the questions he'd thought Ben would ask, this was not one of them. He simply did not have an immediate answer for this one. The boy gazed at him expectantly.

"Well, Ben," He began tentatively. "That's….complicated." Luke looked into his son's eyes. "You know how your mother and I met."

"Sure," He smirked. "She wanted to kill you—you guys had one screwed up relationship, by the way."

"Thank you." Luke responded dryly.

"You're avoiding the question entirely though." He frowned.

"Ben," Luke's tone was bordering on annoyed. "You wanted the story, and I'm giving it to you."

"I wanted to know if you loved mom, not the whole kriffin' story."

Luke sighed heavily. He was not pleased with Ben's tone—but he understood it. His boy was hurting with the loss of his mother; just as Luke was hurting with the loss of his wife—his mate. He supposed that was why he'd taken Ben's innocent question so badly.

He sat down cross-legged and urged Ben to sit in front of him. "Take a seat, this is not a one word answer. It involves some explanation."

Ben did so and waited patiently for his father's answer.

"I'm listening."

The teen had expression that said if he didn't like his father's answer he'd possibly be fed to a Rancor. Ben could be down-right scary when he acted like his mother.

"Well," Luke pressed his hand together and looked around as if he was trying to choose the correct words. "Not instantly. Not the way you would expect, for an engaged couple."

He looked up into his son's eyes; they were laced with hurt and confusion.

The Grand Master sighed. "I told you it was complicated."

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**A/N: Well, I'll get to the answer in the next part..Just wanted to test drive this out. Hope you enjoyed it.**


	2. The Extended Answer

**A/N: Okay, this one is not as short as the last part…..**

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"Please explain why it's complicated." Ben sounded angry.

"Because love is complicated. Relationships are complicated in general. They can't be explained so easily, because sometimes, you're not able to understand why you feel the way you do about that one person. With you mother I believe it was like that.

"Our meeting was perilous to say the least. It started with her pointing a blaster at my head and threatening that she was going to kill me—of course I knew she wouldn't. I could sense good in her even then. What she had become was not who she truly was deep inside. I trusted her not to kill me, as much as I could feel she hated me.

"Your mother often made excuses as to why she kept me alive, but I always felt if she truly wanted my dead, she would have killed me the first time she met me. No questions—no monologue. I guess, she preferred that at the time." He smiled lightly.

"After you mother had fulfilled her last command by killing my clone, she was freed from Palpatine's control. What began between us was a tenuous relationship at best; your mother still had problems with trust and was shy to show her emotions to others. Palpatine had long since engrained those feelings into her and beat others out of her. But, in time we formed camaraderie of sorts; we slowly became, I guess what you would call friends. At least I felt it was that way on my part. Your mother was still reserved; still wary of what I offered.

"She later confided that…I was perhaps the only friend she'd ever had. I felt her admission had drawn us one step more to being closer."

Ben sighed. "I know all this."

"But you don't know what I'm about to tell you." He traced lines on the deck. "You see back then, I felt a certain pull in my very soul. It was as if I felt a certain kinship with your mother. I felt a deep trust for her more the any woman I'd ever known..."

"Except for Callista." Ben scoffed.

Luke warned, "Ben."

The youth raised his hands on surrender. "Please, by all means continue."

His father frowned. "I don't think I should if you're going to give me that kind of attitude."

Ben frowned, casting his eyes to the side. "You can't stop." He said pleadingly. "I have to know."

Luke sighed. "Then maybe you'll let me finish without casting judgment."

"Go ahead."

"As I said, I felt a very deep trust for Mara. I did have feelings for her per se," He put a hand on Ben's arm. "But it wasn't love." He took a deep breath. "I loved Callista. Very deeply—and at the time, I thought she loved me. I was fool. She cared about obtaining the Force once more, more than she wanted me. It broke my heart."

Ben didn't like this; didn't want to hear his father talk about this other woman with such emotion and love in his voice.

"Your mother was there for me. To me she was a very dear friend, who helped me through that hard time in my life. I felt so lost without Callista. I searched for her, but couldn't find her…I gave up. Mara was there. I think there was a time she grew sick of my moping. Disgusted of me. But I knew she cared. She later told me, she hated what Callista had made of me, what she'd done _to _me; that, as my friend, it hurt her to see me hurting.

"I knew your mother cared, and I cared for her. It was a powerful bond I felt; though as I said not necessarily of love. I couldn't deny that the relationship I had with Mara was evolving, your mother was starting to open up more. Even when she refused my attempts to get her to train, she still took time to see me. In fact, she once told me, she'd come to Yavin IV one time because she wanted to see me. I couldn't help but feel she wasn't as completely hopeless as she believed herself to be.

"Then came Nirauan...When I saw that vision of your mother, my heart felt tight and I was frightened for her, for some inexplicable reason I couldn't explain at the time. Now, I believe it largely had to do with the deep connection felt with her. And when we experienced that Force-meld, my heart pushed me, and I knew what it was telling me. It was in that moment that I knew, the reason I cherished her so much…Because she was the woman I was meant to be with for the rest of my life. All the other women, that had gone before her….were merely stepping stones; a broken path that led me to who I was truly meant to be with. I realized that my failed relationships had been a sign, which I had not been able to see before—a sign that Mara was the true one for me."

Luke shrugged with a timid smile. "And so, I asked her to marry." He looked earnestly at Ben. "It felt so right. We felt right. Even if we may not have lived, I wanted her as my wife, to know she would be regardless of the outcome on Nirauan.

"And Mara said _yes_."

He took a breath, coming to the end of his long winded explanation. "So to answer your question…Did I love your mother before we married? I don't believe I did, but what I felt for her, could not be denied. She was very special to me, Ben…I wasn't about to let her go—and frankly if she'd said no, I think it would have broken me.

"I'm forever grateful she said yes—while your mother was alive, I felt my life would never be empty as long as I had her by my side." He smiled. "So, it doesn't matter in the long run if I loved her before. I loved her then and I still love her now. That's all that matters."

Ben sat still for a moment. He was dangerously quiet and that unnerved Luke slightly. The boy was a ticking time bomb when he was silent.

"Ben?" He quested.

"All right…That was satisfactory." Ben got up, dusting off his pants. "But this time…can we cut out the long exposition." He rolled his eyes. "Next time, just say, you realized that mom was a very special friend who you wanted to be with for the rest of your days. It'd be a lot easier and take up less of my time."

Luke sat there, jaw agape.

"Oh, one more thing…" He grinned. "Did mom love you?"

"Why you..." His father growled playfully

Ben ducked an oncoming pillow.

"Eh, you're still alive, so I guess so."

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**A/N: Oh, Ben, you are so gonna get it lol Hope you enjoyed! Please review!**

** Oh, and that broken road comment...kind of from the song Bless the Broken Road from Rascal Flatts. Go find it, listen to it, its Mara and Luke entirely. Also you Belong with Me by Taylor Swift (both are country but they so fit). **


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